Typhoon Haiyan: six-year-old British boy found dead

Six-year-old Jairo Ducusin added to list of victims in Tacloban, following
Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines

Mary Joy Ducusin reacts as she finds her missing six year old son, British citizen Jairo among the bodies brought to one of three mass burial sites where they so far have received more than one thousand typhoon victims in Tacloban.Photo: AFP/GETTY

By David Hopkins

4:26PM GMT 20 Nov 2013

The body of a British six-year-old has been found in a mass grave of 1,000 in the Philippines in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

Jairo Ducusin was identified among the dead on Tuesday after his mother Mary Joy Escalante Ducusin had scoured through debris in the city of Tacloban for a week.

"For several days I kept on searching for him but now I have found him," she cried. "No words could really explain how painful it is."

Mary Joy Ducusin holds his picture after finding her missing six year old son Jairo

Mrs Ducusin and her husband, both Philippine nationals, moved to Britain several years ago, where they worked as nurses in Harlow, near London. Jairo was born in Britain six years ago and the family only moved back to the Philippines two months ago to start a new life.

Typhoon Haiyan was one of the most powerful storms to reach land ever recorded and the number of casualties has risen above 4,000, and is increasing. The city of Tacloban received the full brunt of the typhoon and what was once a bustling city is now a corpse-strewn wasteland.

Survivors from Tacloban and other parts of Leyte are continuing to arrive at the Villamor Airbase in Pasay City. Here they are offered immediate aid and assistance, with many undergoing stress debriefing.

"It was so quick," Mrs Ducusin explained of the typhoon. "All I remember was the water rising to the top of my house."

Mrs Ducusin, Jairo, her husband and his mother climbed to the roof but were immediately blown off by the strong winds.

"We were carried to the second floor of a house nearby. But I didn't see my mother-in-law or my six-year-old boy again."

Firemen and policeman on trucks continue to patrol the devastated streets of Tacloban, taking away unidentified bodies and transporting them to a hilltop communal grave. The bodies are then identified by a forensic pathologist, who records the height and gender of each corpse, along with any distinguishing marks, and ascribes a number to each body.

On Tuesday, among the unidentified bodies was Jairo.

"One of my neighbours sent me a text message saying that they had found a boy, like six years old with the green shirt and the stuffed toy," said his distraught mother.

"My baby loves the stuffed toy so much because when he was born, even in the hospital, he got that stuffed toy. He called it Coco."

William Hague, The Foreign Secretary, confirmed that "a number" of British nationals are still unaccounted for following Typhoon Haiyan.